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How to Market a Homemade Candle Business

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If you're trying to market a homemade candle business, most of the advice online reads the same: post consistently, tell your story, collaborate with other makers, run a holiday promo. All fair. None of it explains why one candle business breaks out and another with the exact same list stays flat.

We started LAWA in 2022 making sculptural soy wax candles by hand in Los Angeles. Our first real jump in traction didn't come from a viral post. It came from picking a sales channel where almost nobody else was doing what we were doing, and then doing it properly.

The channel was the marketing, not the content on it

Our first big wins happened because we became genuinely dominant among pillar candle sellers on Amazon — not through ads, but through being different in a place where difference was rare. At the time, pillar candles on Amazon were a niche with real demand and moderate competition: a gap, not a crowd. We showed up as a handmade product with content that didn't look like anything else on the platform, inside a category that was mostly mass-produced. That combination was the unlock. Viral content helped later, but the first real driver was choosing the right channel and being unmistakably different inside it.

Most marketing advice treats the channel as neutral — pick Instagram, pick Etsy, pick wherever your customers are, then focus on content. For us, the channel itself was the strategy. The U.S. candle market is large and growing, but most of that growth sits inside crowded, familiar channels. Finding the quieter corner of it did more for us than any single tactic — something to weigh alongside what a candle business can realistically earn.

Standing out wasn't one thing — it was everything at once

Once we knew Amazon was where the traction was, we didn't lean on one lever to win there. It was photos, product variety, wax quality, organic mentions from Amazon-finds influencers who found us on their own, and video content that didn't look like a typical listing — all of it running at the same time.

Most marketing lists split these into a checklist — do video, do email, do collaborations — as if each works on its own. For a handmade product on a channel built for mass production, they really work together. A beautiful photo next to mediocre wax doesn't hold. Great wax with flat photography doesn't get found. The compounding was the whole thing for us.

Website and Instagram are non-negotiable. Etsy surprised us

For us, two channels aren't optional: your own website and an Instagram account. Everything else — Etsy, Amazon, Faire, wholesale — depends on your model.

Etsy is worth calling out, because it surprised us. A big share of our Etsy sales came from U.S. customers who weren't looking for LAWA specifically — they were on Etsy looking for handmade, and a sculptural pillar candle like ours was exactly what that search surfaces. It's a reminder that a channel can work for reasons you didn't plan for, which is a good argument for testing one before deciding what it's "for."

Why our packaging videos went viral (and what we learned from the copies)

Our ASMR packaging videos weren't planned as a marketing campaign. We posted a few, and they took off. What made them work is that the way we pack candles on camera is the same way we pack candles when no one's watching. It wasn't a performance of care — it was the process itself, filmed.

Other brands picked up the format soon after. Watching that happen was interesting: what people seemed to respond to wasn't the ASMR aesthetic itself, but the sense of seeing something real — attention to detail, organic materials, the actual complexity behind something that looks, from the outside, like "just a candle." The sound design is easy to copy. The process underneath it isn't.

So if there's one thing that's worked for our content, it's filming what we actually do rather than staging a version of it. The difference tends to show, even when viewers can't quite say why.

What we don't do — promo codes, craft fairs, and why

Two things we've deliberately skipped, even though most candle-business marketing guides recommend both:

Holiday promo codes. We've run them. They almost don't move anything for us. If your product is positioned on design and craft rather than price, a discount code can undercut the thing that's actually driving the sale in the first place.

Craft fairs and local markets. We've never done one — mostly a matter of time and hands. Every hour spent staffing a table is an hour not spent on the online work that's actually been driving sales. We're not closed to in-person entirely: a styled, themed pop-up, first in Los Angeles and then possibly other cities, is something we'd like to try and measure once the bandwidth exists. Skipping craft fairs so far is a resourcing decision, not a verdict on whether they work.

Email marketing, on the other hand, has been one of our strongest performers. It quietly does a lot of the work — bringing people back, turning first-time buyers into repeat ones, and giving us a channel that doesn't depend on an algorithm deciding who sees us that day. It's the one place we can reach the people who already love the product directly. The industry numbers back up why it's worth the effort: for retail and e-commerce brands, email returns roughly $36–$45 for every dollar spent, which is far ahead of paid channels. For us, it's been exactly that kind of return without the ad spend.

Collaboration, done in a way that actually fits the brand

The usual advice here is "swap shoutouts with another local maker." Ours has looked a little different. One holiday season, we partnered with a local pasta-dinner event company — a group of women who put together beautiful pasta dinners for guests — and supplied our vase and pumpkin candles as their table decor. It worked because it made sense visually and seasonally, not because it checked a cross-promotion box.

We've also done gifted collaborations with Amazon-finds influencers who found us organically first, then agreed to work together. In both cases, the relationship started because someone was already drawn to the product — we didn't cold-pitch our way in. If you're a maker reading this and think your work would sit well next to ours, we're open to hearing from you.

If you have zero budget and zero following

This is the question people actually want answered, and the honest version isn't glamorous: post consistently, and grow organically by putting real time and skill into content — not money. We didn't put ad spend behind LAWA's growth in the early days. What we put in was hours and craft, in the content itself.

That's the whole answer. Not a hack, not a channel trick — just consistent, well-made content, sustained over time, without paying to accelerate it. If you're still weighing whether to start at all, this is the honest version of that question.

And honestly, what worked for us probably won't work for you in the same shape. Take what's useful from other people's ups and downs, but there's no reason to map their timeline onto your own. The story you build for your brand is the part no one else can copy.

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Frequently asked questions

How do you market a homemade candle business with no budget?

Focus entirely on content, not ad spend. Post consistently, document your actual process rather than staging it, and let quality photography and video do the work of a marketing budget you don't have yet.

Is Etsy worth it for a handmade candle business?

It has been for us. A large share of our Etsy sales came from U.S. customers actively searching for handmade products — a source of buyers we didn't fully anticipate. It's a channel worth testing before you decide what role it plays for your brand.

Should I sell candles at craft fairs and local markets?

It depends on your bandwidth. We've skipped them entirely and put that time into online channels instead, but that's a resourcing decision specific to our team, not a claim that in-person selling doesn't work.

Do holiday promo codes help sell candles?

Not for us. Discount codes around the holidays have consistently underperformed compared to other efforts, especially for a product positioned on design and craft rather than price.

What social media platform is best for marketing a candle business?

Instagram, alongside your own website, is the one channel we consider non-negotiable regardless of your model. Beyond that, the right platform depends on where your specific buyers are already looking for handmade goods.

Is email marketing worth it for a candle business?

For us, it's one of the highest-performing channels we have. It brings customers back, drives repeat purchases, and reaches people directly without depending on a social algorithm. Retail and e-commerce email typically returns around $36–$45 for every dollar spent, and it's delivered that kind of value for us without ad spend.

Kseniya Tsiatseryna is the founder of LAWA Candles, handmaking sculptural soy wax candles in Los Angeles since 2022.

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